Two little digits could mean a ton of trouble for computers throughout the world come the year 2000.

The problem involves computers that use two digits to identify years, such as 98 for 1998. Without a fix, their inability to distinguish 2000 from 1900 could produce erroneous data, cause programs to fail and create widespread disruptions in commercial, financial and government transactions.

The cities of Amarillo and Canyon already are coping with the potential trouble, city officials said.

Glen Metcalf, Canyon city manager, said his assistant had looked into the problem and corrected it on the city mainframe.

"It was nominal as far as cost," Metcalf said in a previous interview. "Overall, I don't think it's going to be as big a problem as everyone anticipated."

Amarillo's mainframe should hum through the change of years without a hitch, said assistant manager of data processing Ken Terrell.

"We're probably in the range of 95 percent complete," Terrell said.

The city began planning in the middle of 1996 and started on the conversion during the first part of 1997, Terrell said. Converting the mainframe is expected to be complete in about three months, he said.

"The payroll system and the accounting package were the two main areas of concern and any place where two dates are compared, or sorted is where the problem occurs," Terrell said.

The Amarillo Police Department's main computer already is compliant, said Larry Gray, APD's system administrator. New software is tentatively scheduled to be in use by February 1999, Gray said.

The APD wants to replace the software for computer-aided dispatch, records management, jail management (which tracks prisoners and functions of the jail) and mobile data, which is the computer terminals in all the police cars.

"The police department has been pretty heavily computerized for 14 years," Gray said. "There are a lot of systems in the police department."

Some vendors dropped out of consideration because of the 2000-compliant requirement, he said.

The APD is scheduled to award the bid by sometime in August, Gray said.

The Amarillo Fire Department also plans to replace its computer systems and being year-2000 compliant would just be part of the upgrade, according to department officials.

Bringing all the new software and hardware online will take three or four years, Assistant Chief James Amerson said.

"We do have some possible (year 2000) conflicts in the radio system," Amerson said.

The dispatch and fire truck radios are 2000-ready, but the consoles in the radio shop that control them may not be, Amerson said.

"We don't foresee a major expense or major problems getting those up to speed," Amerson said of the consoles.

The AFD is looking at two systems, Lt. Marc Lusk said. One will be a computer-sided dispatch system to provide more information to fire trucks such as routes. The other will be a record-keeping system to generate data for analysis such as arrival times to scenes.

Potter-Randall County Emergency Communication District executive director Charlie Broomhead said the conversion to digital technology will have the district pass the turn of the century unscathed.

"We'll be in compliance before the end of this year . . . unless they hold up Windows 98," Broomhead said.

Correcting the computer shortfall coincided with the move to replace the old technologies with wireless communications, he said. The Associated Press contributed to this report.